Jeff_S

Hello Everyone, Tomorrow looks like a nice day to fly in the Southeast and I'm looking for a reason, so I thought I'd take Tony Armour's suggestion and head over to Culman, AL (3A1) for lunch at the Windsock Cafe. They apparently have great burgers...and self-serve fuel at the airport is only $5.46 according to AirNav. If you're interested let me know. I figure I'll get there by 11am CDT roughly. If I don't hear back from anybody I may still go...I know Tony is at least considering it. Hope to meet some folks there! Cheers, Jeff Schlueter N1077G Atlanta PDK

I've never spoken with Mike personally but I have enjoyed his seminars. I considered the Savvy MX program for myself but decided that what others have said here is true. His team specializes in Cirrus foremost, and maybe Bo's and Cessna's secondarily. The real value they bring is helping less-sophisticated owners manage their maintenance personnel so they don't get taken to the cleaners, but the simple steps that Mike describes in his various webinars are not rocket science, and a reasonably-involved owner working with a mechanic or shop that he trusts can probably accomplish much the same thing. I do see one real benefit anyone could get, which was highlighted in Mike's latest EAA magazine article. This is the support they can provide when you breakdown away from home. Their knowledge of shops around the country and ability to step in and deal with your airplane while you deal with whatever else you have to being away from home seems like it would be a good benefit...but hopefully not one you have to use very often.

I put a Whelen LED into my single-bulb on the cowl which I bought at last year's Sun n' Fun. It worked fine but developed some moisture inside, so Whelen promptly replaced it completely free of charge. It's worked fine, and I basically just turn it on and leave it on throughout the entire flight to make me extra visible.

Quote: 201er Just dropped my 201 off for my first annual since the one I had at prebuy. How do you guys cope with these? What about with the airplane down time? Without my plane I suddenly don't know what to do with myself. I feel like an addict in withdrawl already.

I bought my Mooney with the oil separator already in place, so I have nothing to compare it to except my prior Cherokee Warrior. I can tell you the Warrior did get a much greasier belly between cleanings. As to Mike Busch's sentiments, I've certainly heard/read them, but here are my facts about oil consumption and quality: 1) I get a good 10-15 hours after an oil change (fill to 7 on the dipstick) before I even need to THINK about putting in oil. Generally once it gets down to a smidge below 6 I'll put in a quart, and usually not again until the next change (~25-35 hours depending on usage and calendar time). Most I've ever had to put in was one extra quart (so, 2 total) between changes. 2) Blackstone has nothing but praise for my oil samples, and nothing that would denote that the oil going back in from the separator is putting "gunk" back into the engine.

I have to say, I'm a die-hard ForeFlight user and supporter, having jumped on their bandwagon when it was just version 2.x on a iPhone. I think they have done an amazing job continuing to improve their product and make it useful in every way. Imagine my surprise, then, when I finally downloaded the free trial version of Garmin Pilot and started playing around with it on my iPad 3. There are A LOT of features that I really like. The flight plan entry method mimics (essentially) what they have on the GTN series and the new portables, but it makes the most of the iPad capabilities. The user interface is well thought-out, and the access to weather briefings and filings seems very good as well. And one really cool feature allows you to drag a slider which mimics your flight plan, and you can program this slider to pop up information along the way. For example, you can have it show METARs along your route, or even better, SUAs so you can quickly see what military or other areas you need to avoid. All in, to get everything with the Garmin app that I have with ForeFlight would cost $29.99 more per year, which covers the SafeTaxi system. The base subscription and access to geo-referenced approach plates is the same price as FF. i'm not saying I'm gonna' switch, but I do think they've developed a very good application for the iPad/iPhone and I can see it being quite useful.

Yes, excellent service. I needed to replace just a few placards when I first got my plane in order for the IA to pass the annual. I ordered up just what I needed and they arrived promptly. The stick-on mylar sheet works well if you have to put them on metal or smooth plastic. In my case, I needed a few to go on some tweed interior so I purchased some thin arts-crafts sheet metal at a Michael's store and stuck the placards on that, then glued the whole shebang to the tweed and it's held great.

Quote: ehscott Just got back from Cole Aviation and after inspeciting the tank and seeing where the leak is located (on the outboard portion of the right tank) he was pretty sure based on his experience that a complete reseal is not necessary. What he does is empties the tank and does a complete coating of outboard tank. Said he has done numerous projects like this wth good results. Still debating what I am going to do but am leaning toward having it patched rather than having a total reseal done. If it lasts me a couple of years (or possibly longer in his experience) so that I can get it done where I want and when I can work it around my business travel schedule. Will get it done in mid-June when I am out of the country and in the meantime I now have a plane with a 55-gallon tank. At 20 gallons there is no leaking at all. I recognize the obvious risk of wasting $1K and having a reseal done shortly thereafter and I will be happy to allow others to say they told me so. I'll keep y'all posted on my final decision and how it turns out.

I was messing around with FlyQ yesterday since it's free. I had some intitial bugs getting it to work flight plans, but it was apparently because I hadn't fully entered my aircraft profile yet. Once I got that worked out the app functioned. It is graphically appealing, and the ability to automatically create an airways routing at optimimal wind altitude is nice. Beyond that, I think it's more confusing to use than ForeFlight and as noted above, no map view at all for looking at flight plans, etc. It's a nice free tool for weather and pre-flight planning, so it has that going for it. But since I'm a dedicated FF user I can't see FlyQ offering me too much.

Many thanks to Dave Snyder and Kris and Ken Adams for participating with me at the KPDK Good Neighbor Day 2012. We had a primo spot right where all the spectators entered and exited the event, and we must have put at least 100 kids into the cockpit of a Mooney during the event. Literally, as soon as you opened the door to let one up, a line formed along the wing. It was great to see that level of excitement for flying in kids. Let's hope we get some of them as pilots in the future. Cheers, Jeff

Quote: N601RX Unless the engine was pickled and perserved, it may not even be worth core value. That is the position I would take unless he wanted to remove a couple of cylinders and prove otherwise.

Quote: 1964-M20E Take a month or two off and enjoy flying for a while but by all means go get it. I got my PPL in 1987 and I'm just getting around to my IR. I started just before Christmas and it has put somewhat a damper on flying because of the work even though I took two long xcountry flights each about 480nm since starting my IR. I'm hoping to finish up my IR this weekend if mother nature cooperates.

Hey all. I tried to search for this but kept getting an error message, so at the risk of repeating any prior info, I'm curious what users of the New iPad (aka iPad 3) are seeing for battery life. They tout this one as having such better battery life, but maybe that's compared to the iPad 2. I had an original iPad, and last summer I flew all the way from Atlanta to Denver, 8 hours of flying time with it turned on constantly except during the fuel stop, and still had about 15% left. With my New iPad, I go out for a couple of hours and it's already down to 70%. This is turning OFF wifi and cellular data, but of course leaving the GPS active for moving map coverage. What are other people experiencing? Any other tips for extending battery life on these new units? Thanks!

Communication, communication, communication. That is the key to a good instructor in any endeavor, but especially in something like flying that incorporates both physical and mental skills. This is a topic I actually know something about; although not a CFI, I have been a certified ski instructor, scuba divemaster and black belt karate instructor, so I have worked with many students as they learn new skills and mastery of subjects. The best instructors will have multiple ways of trying to impart information, since not everyone learns the same. There is an acronym called VAK, which stands for Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and represents the three commons ways people learn. So a good instructor will help you SEE what you need to learn, HEAR it through sound explanation, and FEEL it through practicing the technique until it becomes natural to you. There are multiple styles of course, and some will be more talky while others are more feely, but there you just have to test drive a few and find one that you feel matches your style and temperament. There's no magic formula for that, other than trial and error. But I do agree that once you find an instructor you like, it's best to stick with them through the PPL, other than right before your test you should go out with someone else to use as a "test" examiner so you can experience having a different person sitting next to you in the cockpit, and also because it's likely this other instructor will impart some new wisdom that s/he has in their bag of tricks.

Well, it depends on what you want out of your rest stop. Just walking around a bit and getting gas? Or do you want to partake of what the place has to offer for a few hours? A fun one would be Jekyll Island where you can go to the old hotel and resort area and do some shopping, all just a free shuttle away from the strip. They might not have put in gas there yet, though, in which case you'd need to pick some up at KSSI either before or after. Hilton Head is nice but obviously very commercial. Just a few ideas.

My plane has a period (I think 2 years) where there's no annual in the logs, so I assume it was sitting somewhere during this time. This was before the prior owner bought it, and he spent a great deal of money fixing it up and it's flown regularly since then. The engine seems to be performing quite well...Blackstone said of my last oil analysis "that's one good looking Lycoming engine."

Quote: N4352H Check these turkeys out..... they love to fly 135kts. Check their Flightaware....... Just say'in......

I flight plan for 150KTAS and can usually get that in cruise with WOT and LOP, generally burning something around 9.5gph or less at higher altitudes. I've tried the ROP route to pick up a few knots, but in my plane the best I would usually see is 155-157KTAS at 12.5gph. Do the math...4% more speed for 30% more fuel. To me it's a no brainer.

My Mooney is the child's college education that I never had to pay for...at least that's the way I look at it. Offspring were apparently not in my fate, and now I'm past the point where I would want to take that on (although my brother had his first child at age 52...egads!). I have friends who pay twice what my yearly Mooney operational costs are just keeping kids in private school, and they haven't even STARTED paying for college yet. It's definitely all about where you put your priorities.

There aren't too many books that I'm aware of. There's a book about the Al Mooney story that provides some good background on his history, but not a lot of specs like you're talking about. Here's a site I used to help me fully understand the Mooney line-up and it has some specs: http://www.pilotfriend.com/aircraft%20performance/Mooney/mooney.htm If you subscribe to Aviaition Consumer magazine, you can search their website for any feature articles they've done on Mooney models. They used to sell a DVD that had all their used aircraft guides on one disk, so that could be an option if you don't want to subscribe to the magazine.

Engine replacement, or overhaul, will depend on many factors. Some subscribe to the theory that you should do so at, or near, the manufacturer's TBO time because, well, that's what they recommend. But there is a growing school of thought (to which I subscribe) that mere engine time is not a great indicator of whether or not it's time for major work. There are many diagnostics you can do now to check the condition of the parts, including borescoping the cylinders, oil analysis, and regular use of an engine monitor during flight. All these, if used correctly, will give you an indication of whether or not your engine is in need of major work. It's called condition-based maintenance (I think...may have gotten my term wrong) but if you search around here and the Internet you'll find out a lot. In particular, go to Mike Busch's website (http://www.savvymx.com) to the Resources Area and recorded webinars, and there's a whole webinar that discusses this exact thing.

I can't believe no one has commented on how cute that co-pilot was in the video! I bet they kept those flight legs short in their exposure suits...no way to take that baby off if you have to pee. And finally, did anyone else notice that on the Euro legs of their journey, they were definitely NOT speaking English on the radio?

Quote: JimR I'm not suggesting that the terminolgy that I used is correct. I just wanted to let you guys know that you were talking about two different things. IMHO the 205's fully enclosed landing gear is the coolest thing ever. I think that MAC abandoned it, though, in later models. I read a comment once on either the MAPA or Mooney Tech List that it is difficult to rig. Perhaps that is why? See gallery picture number 18 below for a photograph of the 205's landing gear door system. In it it almost looks like you can see the inboard gear on the right main hanging open. Jim http://www.mooneyspace.com/index.cfm?action=gallery&userGallery=114

There is apparently a celebrated spiritual vortex very near the airport. Perhaps it has migrated to just underneath her home and that is what is causing her corporeal problems. She just needs to climb to the top of Bell Rock to recover her equilibrium.

I had the leading edge of one of my inner gear doors crack so badly last summer that we had to just replace it. So I flew several trips with it missing, and I can't say that it impacted speed all that much. Nor did I feel any excessive drag on that side of the airplane. I think 5 knots would be an extreme example of speed loss, but that's just a gut feeling.